Thursday, November 10, 2016

Sporting Still Chasing Rossi, but Other MLS Teams are Interested

Things have been fairly quiet on the Sporting KC front since their season ended on the road in Seattle. The team has basically turned their focus towards 2017, but there's been very little news on where they are with Benny Feilhaber (although there's been no news about him going elsewhere either) or with adding new players (although that's really not going to come until the MLS Cup playoffs end). One name has come back up regarding Sporting KC though, Fausto Rossi. Earlier this week, TuttMercatoWeb reported that Kansas City still have the midfielder "in the crosshairs" for a January move to MLS.

On the surface the midfielder would still seem to be a like for like replacement of Benny Feilhaber should the club fail to re-sign their current attacking midfielder. If Kansas City does end up signing though TuttMercatoWeb says Rossi's American adventure may still happen. As Once a Metro pointed out in the same article if Sporting Kansas City is hesitant about the move, there are apparently two more MLS teams interested in Rossi. If Kansas City decide not to sign Rossi, both the New York Red Bulls and Orlando City are apparently interested in the Italian.

Based on MLS rules though Kansas City should still have first dibs on Rossi through the discovery claim process. This would put Kansas City first on the priority list for Rossi as MLS roster rules are set up to keep teams from "fighting" over the rights to different players. At the same time, this could just be Rossi's agent trying to get a deal done for his client and throwing out names of other MLS teams interested as a way to try to get the move to KC done quicker.